Critical Mick

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Vicious Circle
by Arlene Hunt
Lir (Hodder Headline), 2004

Five Prostitution-Related Wikipedia Entries that Do Not Appear in Vicious Circle (and Five that Do!)

1. Hooker with the Heart of Gold. Vicious Circle opens on the steps of Kilmainham Courthouse, wherein prostitutes Amanda Harrington and Marna Galloway have just had the bloody book thrown at them. Remembering how the Gardai and Judge targeted their two-woman operation instead of Dublin's major players, violent criminals and drug fiends, Amanda feels her anger grow. Throughout the novel's 533 pages, she does not spend a single evening feeding orphaned kittens or pining for Richard Gere to come rescue her. Amanda stays pissed off.

2. Pimp my Ride. No old automobiles receive custom overhauls in Vicious Circle. There are no friendly rappers or heavily tattooed guys who know everything there is to know about upholstery. Instead, there's a pimp baddie named Paul 'Tricky' McCracken who bears a special hatred for the independent operator, Amanda Harrington. Tricky and his monstrous enforcer The Whale also make life difficult for Jim Stafford and the team of Gardai responsible for busting vice in Dublin. They make fools of the cops time and again, evading capture as they harshly exploit the immigrants who work in their brothels. Tricky is a very bad man, and his mom was bad too.

3. Me Love You Long Time. Strangely enough, this novel about the Irish sex industry has almost no sex in it. What there is, isn't presented in any way that is sexy or exciting.

3.5. Me Love You Long Time 2 (Bonus!). Vicious Circle is one of the few crime novels that has no romantic subplot. For while it appears that Amanda Harrington might develop a bond with Michael Dwyer, the cop who busted her then later had to appeal for Amanda's assistance in pursuit of the real bad guys. This romance would have been corny as hell. The un-romanticized way Arlene Hunt has written Vicious Circle is much more convincing.

4. Angela's Ashes. Amanda Harrington, Marna Galloway and the other prostitutes who work in Vicious Circle are not forced, weeping, into the job out of direst poverty. It's a steady earner for most of them, and money rolls in for those who have a specialty- like Amanda and Marna.

5. Willie the Pimp. Frank Zappa is not to be found within these pages, but there is the occasional riff that's inventive, authentic and bizarre. The novel comes to life on page 41, when Amanda Harrington's loyal client Colin O'Riordan drops by for his Tuesday morning sexual release. A financial advisor in his mid-fifties, Colin dresses in a PVC French maid costume and pays Amanda €200 for allowing him to mince around her luxury apartment, tidying and calling her Madame. Hot rats!!!

5. The Mean Streets. This Arlene Hunt conveys well. Fáilte Ireland's leprechauns have been mugged and thatch roofs torched. The Dublin in Vicious Circle is a portrait of a city that is often unfriendly, and as with crime reporter Liz Allen's prositution novel Last to Know, its details feel accurate and convincing.

Wouldn't Vicious Circle make a great name for a street?

Critical Mick says: Five clichés that don't appear, four that do, all covered in genuine Dublin grit and grime. As with most straightforward cops-chasing-robbers Irish crime novels (Crazy Man Michael, The Mercury Man, Death of an Irish Sinner) Vicious Circle has merit but fails to truly inspire. Arlene Hunt's subsequent titles introduce the rookie private eye pair John Quigley and Sarah Kenny of QuicK Investigations, and are very well received. I look forward to reading one in November of next year.

Read Declan Burke's June 2007 interview with Arlene Hunt

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This Page Was Last Updated On 22 August, 2008.